Written by Jesse Furey

“Innumerable are the evils that beset human life; innumerable, too, the deaths that threaten it. We need not go beyond ourselves: since our body is the receptacle of a thousand diseases—in fact holds within itself and fosters the causes of diseases—a man cannot go about unburdened by many forms of his own destruction, and without drawing out a life enveloped, as it were, with death.” Book I, ch. 17, 10

John Calvin, the 16th century French Reformer, began his career as a budding academic by publishing a substantial commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia. Seneca was a first century Roman philosopher who was one of the most influential figures of the Stoic school of philosophy. The Stoics taught that the way to experience the good life (eudaimonia) was through accepting reality without being controlled by fear or pleasure, and through the patient cultivation of virtue. Even in popular culture, to be “stoic” is understood as an unusual coolness in the face of either pressure or pleasure.

One way the Stoics promoted the acceptance of the circumstances of life and the cultivation of virtue in the midst of those circumstances was through the Memento Mori. Memento Mori is, literally, Death Reminder. The earliest practice of Memento Mori is believed to be an ancient Roman tradition—a victorious general returning from battle and parading before the cheering crowds would have a servant whispering to him, “look behind you, remember you are just a man, and remember you will die!” Whether it was the whispers of an aide, or skeletons in festivals, or a skull on your desk (the skull is the most familiar to us moderns—even occupying a central place in Marvel’s The Punisher character, though it is not clear whether his memento mori is for himself or others), for the Stoics, Memento Mori was a way of life.

Seneca himself said, “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” This way of thinking is alien to most of us moderns. We have, for the most part, imbibed the enlightenment vision of everlasting life. The scientists (an honorable vocation, but one that has become our new white-robed priests) will figure it out and the machine will fix it and we will live forever, even if we have to colonize Mars to do it. Of course, this utopian vision crumbles in the midst of a global pandemic that shows no respect to our vision and no signs of ending anytime soon. We need a better approach to life. We need to recover the Memento Mori.

Reading the Institutes, it is not hard to see the influence Seneca and the Stoics had on Calvin’s theology. Yet, they depart here. For the Stoics the key to life was balancing the books as if today was your last day alive. Calvin also highlights that our life is “enveloped...with death.” But the good life isn’t found in the impossible and exhausting work of balancing the books. Instead, Calvin’s Memento Mori turns our attention on the Providence of God. When our certain death joins with our joyous trust in God’s providence—this is the good life.

Of course, we could take it one step further—to the hill of the Skull itself (Golgotha is Aramaic for “Skull”). The hill of Calvary and the cross of Christ is the most powerful Memento Mori there is. Providence and Death joined together in the broken body of the Eternal One, who would rise again to new and eternal life on the third day. This is why we carry the cross before us—a reminder of a death not ours. For Christ-followers, the cross is our reminder to live in reality because we will, in fact, die, but death has already lost its sting for us.