2.  Your admirable husband was a good and great man, and his bodily strength rivalled the virtues of his soul.  He was unsurpassed, I must own, in both respects.  But he was human, and he is dead; like Adam, like Abel, like Noah, like Abraham, like Moses, or any one else of like nature that you can name.  Let us not then complain because he has been taken from us.  Let us rather thank Him, who joined us to him, that we dwelt with him from the beginning.  To lose a husband is a lot which you share with other women; but to have been united to such a husband is a boast which I do not think any other woman can make.  In truth our Creator fashioned that man for us as a model of what human nature ought to be.  All eyes were attracted towards him, and every tongue told of his deeds.  Painters and sculptors fell short of his excellence, and historians, when they tell the story of his achievements in war, seem to fall into the region of the mythical and the incredible.  Thus it has come about that most men have not even been able to give credit to the report conveying the sad tidings, or to accept the truth of the news that Arinthæus is dead.  Nevertheless Arinthæus has suffered what will happen to heaven and to sun and to earth.  He has died a bright death; not bowed down by old age; without losing one whit of his honour; great in this life; great in the life to come; deprived of nothing of his present splendour in view of the glory hoped for, because he washed away all the stain of his soul, in the very moment of his departure hence, in the laver of regeneration.  That you should have arranged and joined in this rite is cause of supreme consolation.  Turn now your thoughts from the present to the future, that you may be worthy through good works to obtain a place of rest like his.  Spare an aged mother; spare a tender daughter, to whom you are now the sole comfort.  Be an example of fortitude to other women, and so regulate your grief that you may neither eject it from your heart, nor be overwhelmed by your distress.  Ever keep your eyes fixed on the great reward of patience, promised, as the requital of the deeds of this life, by our Lord Jesus Christ. cf. Ep. clxxix and Theod., H.E. iv. 30.