Letter 806

To Venustus the Leading Citizen [proteuon, a chief magistrate of the city]. "Sweet is the sleep of the servant," says the divine Scripture [Ecclesiastes 5:11]. For sleep is then in truth sweet and most pleasant, and in a certain manner the sleeper rests and is at peace, whenever the soul that possesses the body uses nourishment self-sufficiently and with measure, setting before itself the aim of sustaining the body and clothing it. Then in truth sleep is found to be sweet for the servant. But for the man who lives dissolutely, and who provokes the body through the indulgence of an insatiable appetite, sleep is not sweet nor according to nature; rather, it does not at all permit the soul that possesses the body as its servant to find rest. For thereafter the body, exceedingly gorged with the extravagance of its foods and drinks, throws off the yoke and imagines that it is acting as a free man; and rising up in revolt against its mistress, nature, and rousing the swarm of licentiousness, and shamelessly putting forward the wrestling-grounds of manifold pleasures and the wrestling-school of the most disgraceful passions, it craves false crowns and prizes.

Γλυκὺς τοῦ δούλου ὁ ὕπνος, φησὶν ἡ θεία Γραφή. Γλυκέα γὰρ τῷ ὄντι καὶ ἡδίστη τότε ἐστί, καὶ τρόπον τινὰ ἀναπαύεται καὶ ἡσυχάζει κοιμώμενος, ὅταν ἡ κτησαμένη τὸ σῶμα ψυχή, αὐτάρκως καὶ μετὰ μέτρου ταῖς τροφαῖς χρήσηται, σκοπὸν θεμένη τοῦ διαθρέψαι αὐτὸ καὶ σκεπάσαι. Τότε τῷ ὄντι γλυκὺς εὑρίσκεται ὁ ὕπνος τῷ δούλῳ. Τῷ δὲ ἀσωτευομένῳ, καὶ διὰ χρῆσιν ἀπλήστου ἐρεθίζοντι τὸ σῶμα, οὐκ ἔστι γλυκὺς ὁ ὕπνος καὶ κατὰ φύσιν, ἀλλ’ οὐδέως συγχωρεῖ διαναπαύεσθαι τὴν κτησαμένην αὐτὸ δούλον ψυχήν. Ἀπαυγενίζει γὰρ λοιπὸν ὑπεράγαν κεχορτασμένον τῇ πολυτελείᾳ τῶν βρωμάτων, καὶ τῶν πομάτων, καὶ ἐλευθεριάζειν φαντάζεται, καὶ κατεξανιστάμενον τῆς κυρίας φύσεως, καὶ τῆς ἀκολασίας τὸ σμῆνος ἐξεγεῖρον, τά τε σκάμματα τῶν ποικίλων ἡδονῶν, καὶ τὴν τῶν αἰσχίστων παθῶν παλαίστραν ἀνερυθριάστως προβαλλόμενον, στεφάνων ψευτῶν καὶ βραβείων ἐφίεται.