Letter 128

To the Same Person. "The lamp of the body," Scripture says, "is the eye" [Matthew 6:22]. For the mind that is set on things above is the eye of the soul, possessing keen vision and sending its own radiance throughout the whole condition of the soul. But if you incline the mind toward this rough and wretched realm through drunken excess and through cares that are not profitable but rather drag it down toward the pit of destruction, what good will it be able to conceive, or what wholesome thing will it suggest to its own reasonings? And so it must inevitably be darkened, and the whole disposition must be thrown into confusion, held fast by perplexities as though in the night and in a grievous war.

Ὁ λύχνος, φησί, τοῦ σώματός ἐστιν ὁ ὀφθαλμός. Ὁ γὰρ τὰ ἄνω φρονῶν νοῦς ὀφθαλμός ἐστι τῆς ψυχῆς ἐῤῥωμένην ἔχων τὴν ὅρασιν, καὶ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ αὐγὴν εἰς ὅλην τὴν κατάστασιν διαπέμπων. Ἂν δ’ εἰς τὸ τραχὺ τοῦτο, καὶ μοχθηρὸν νεύσῃς τὸν νοῦν διὰ κραιπάλης, καὶ φροντίδων μὴ συμφεροσῶν, κάτω δὲ φερουσῶν πρὸς τὸ βάραθρον ἀπωλείας, τί ἀγαθὸν δυνήσεται νοῆσαι, ᾗ ὑπαγορεύσαι χρηστόν τι τοῖς οἰκείοις λογισμοῖς; ὥστε ἀνάγκη ἐσκοτῶσθαι, καὶ τεταράχθαι πᾶσαν τὴν ἕξιν, ἀπορίαις ἐνεχομένην ὥσπερ ἐν νυκτί, καὶ χαλεπῷ πολέμῳ.