Sin Is the Power of Death. Oecumenius: And how does he rule over
death? Since he rules over sin from which death has its power, he also rules
over death. Sin, at any rate, is the power of death. Then having a sacrifice
for sin and being the agent of the sacrifice, he has the power over death.…
Through his own death he rendered sin ineffective and held the devil under his
power, who is the strength and power of death. For if sin had not had power
over humankind, death would not have entered the world. Fragments on the
Epistle to the Hebrews 2.14.
Christ Conquered the Fear of
Death. Photius: Human
beings had been afraid of death because they are held in slavery. The slavery
of death means to be a subject of sin. “The sting of death is sin.” Now, by his
death Christ destroyed “the one who has the power of death, that is, the
devil,” the inventor and the leader of sin. Sin became a disease. However, as
we have been released from the oppression of that slavery, so we have been also
delivered from the fear of death. And that is evident from the following
illustrations. Before we feared and tried to avoid death as the supreme and
invincible evil, but now we perceive it as prelude transition into the superior
life and accept it joyously from those who persecute us for the sake of Christ
and his commandments. Fragments on the Epistle to the Hebrews 2.14–15. (Hebrews,
ed. Erik M. Heen and Philip D. W. Krey [Ancient Christian Commentary on
Scripture; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2005], 47)
