The Slavery of Death

by Richard Beck

This passage is a concise summary of the entire argument to this point. As mortal creatures the selfish pursuit of survival and self-preservation becomes our highest good, and these survival fears lead us into all sorts of sinful practices. Almost every unwholesome pursuit of humanity—from hedonism to self-aggrandizement to acquisitiveness to rivalry to violence—can be traced back to these basic survival fears. The fear of death creates the experience of the satanic in our lives. In all this we again note the close and intimate association between sin, death, and the devil. But the links here are not mysterious, mystical, mythical, or metaphysical. The psychology at work here is clear, simple, and widely attested to. In my opinion this is a remarkable convergence between theology and the social sciences, a bridge we hope to exploit to the fullest in Part 2. Also worth noting is how this seemingly modern and even scientific view reflects, according to the Orthodox, the earliest teachings of the church. For example, Romanides shares a sermon from the patristic father John Chrysostom: He who fears death is a slave and subjects himself to everything in order to avoid dying. . . . [But] he who does not fear death is outside the tyranny of the devil. For indeed “man would give skin for skin, and all things for [the sake of] his life,” [Job 2:4] and if a man should decide to disregard this, whose slave is he then? He fears no one, is in terror of no one, is higher than everyone, ...