Job 34:22

"No place, not even the shadow of death, will hide these guilty ones: the shadow of death is not made to hide them. It is as it is said: "The old men have no wisdom; Because old age does not necessarily bring wisdom. And elsewhere: "Do not greet the heretic (2):" that is not why he is heretical.

There is no darkness, and there is no shadow of death, where they who work iniquity may be hid. What did he intend to designate by darkness but ignorance, and what by the shadow of death, except oblivion? For it is said of the ignorance of certain persons, Having their mind obscured with darkness. [Eph. 4, 13] And it is written again of the oblivion which comes on us at death, In that day all their thoughts shall perish. [Ps. 146, 4] Since then whatever is thought of during life is utterly consigned to oblivion by death, oblivion is a kind of shadow of death. For as intervening death puts an end to the doings of life, so does intervening forgetfulness destroy that which existed in the memory. It is rightly, therefore, called its shadow, inasmuch as it is modelled upon it, as it were, while it imitates its power in lulling the senses to rest. But, since God is neither unacquainted with men's evil thoughts, nor forgetful of their evil deeds, (except indeed they are blotted out of His sight by penitence,) it is appropriately observed, There is no darkness, and there is no shadow of death, where they who work iniquity may be hid. As though he were to say, No one is hidden from His judgment, for this reason, that it is impossible for Him either not to behold what we do, or to forget what He beholds. Although 'darkness,' or 'the shadow of death,' can be understood likewise in another sense. For every change is a kind of resemblance of death. For that which changes any thing, cuts it off, as it were, from what it was before: that so it ceases to be what it was, and begins to be what it was not. Because then the true Light, our Creator, I mean, is obscured by no vicissitude of change, and overshadowed by no defects in His own nature; but it is His nature to shine forth unchangeably, darkness and the shadow of death are said not to exist in Him. Wherefore it is written elsewhere, With Whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning. [James 1, 17] And hence again, Paul the Apostle says, Who only hath immortality, and dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto. [l Tim. 6, 16] But since we all know that both the soul of man and angelic spirits were created immortal, why is God alone said by the Apostle to have immortality, unless it be that God alone truly dies not, since He alone is never changed? For the soul of man would not fall, if it had not been…