that, to those who rightly discerned the truth, the thrice blessed one seemed not to die, but to

experience a real change and transition from an earthly to a heavenly existence, since her soul,
remoulded as it were into an incorruptible and angelic essence1

And so they understood him to be an angel, the very angel foretold by the prophet, in the words,
"Behold, I send my angel before (d) thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee," a passage of
Scripture which is quoted by the Evangelist Mark. 2

O ye who are dead in appearance, and alive in reality, for your inferiority to the angels is filled up by
8

the suffering which has happened on behalf of Christ3

oh ! the blessed confessors of the kingdom of Christ, who were tried like gold in the excellence of
their righteousness, and obtained through the conflict in which they were set the heavenly life of
angels4

For, when he shall receive his body, and shall have changed his nature from corruption to
incorruption; his shall be a conversation which is equal to that of the Angels in heaven:5

So also is the nature of the rational faculty, which is in man, (circumstanced), that it is now bound up
in a corruptible body, and of its own power acts but feebly. But, should it be freed from the
corruption which surrounds it, and receive (as a possession) the locality which is in heaven, and
henceforth be sown and planted (as it were) in the society which (is far) beyond it, and be fitted for
the clothing of heaven and of the Angels6

This promise, their Saviour confirmed by deeds in His conflict with Death ; by which He proved to his
Disciples, that Death which had (hitherto) been so fearful to all men, was nothing. The life moreover,
which had been promised by Him, He established by open view to their very eyes; so that they
should even see it; and made this His Image (body), by its resurrection, the commencement of our
hope,--of the imperishable life of our bodies, of the soul as being immortal, and of our greatness as
like to that of the Angels.7

1
Viaa constantin, III, XLVI.
2
Demonstratio Evanghelica, IX, V.
3
Encomium of the martyrs, 2.
4
History of martyrs in palestine, pe final.
5
Teofania, I,75.
6
Teofania, I, 77.
7
Teofania, III, 79.