Letter 142

To Gerontius the Exceptor. [an exceptor was a shorthand clerk and notary in the late Roman administration] "Have no fellowship," says the Apostle, "with the unfruitful works of darkness" [Ephesians 5:11]. For what fruit had you in the wages of spiritual death, in the things of which you are now ashamed? [echoing Romans 6:21-23] For truly the wicked works are unfruitful, and so is every deed of darkness. But when the soul is able to grow sober again, and to come to a recognition of itself, it blushes the more and is ashamed at the things sinned in the drunkenness of vice, and it discovers a dawning radiance of self-control.

Μὴ συγκοινωνεῖτε, φησὶν ὁ Ἀπόστολος, τοῖς ἀκάρποις ἔργοις τοῦ σκότους. Τίνα γὰρ καρπὸν εἴχετε ἐν τοῖς τοῦ νοητοῦ θανάτου ὀψωνίοις, ἐφ’ οἷς νῦν ἐπαισχύνεσθε; Ἀληθῶς γὰρ ἄκαρπα τυγχάνει τὰ ἔργα τὰ πονηρά, καὶ πᾶσα σκοτεινὴ πρᾶξις. Ὅταν δὲ ἡ ψυχὴ δυνηθῇ ἀνανῆψαι, καὶ εἰς συναίσθησιν ἐλθεῖν, ἐρυθριᾷ μᾶλλον καὶ αἰσχύνεται ἐπὶ τοῖς ἁμαρτηθεῖσιν ἐν τῇ μέθῃ τῆς κακίας, καὶ ἐναύγασμα εὑρίσκει σωφροσύνης.