Exhortation to the Greeks 10.101

Till the soil, we say, if you are a farmer, but know God as you till it; and sail, you who love seafaring, but call on the heavenly Pilot. Has knowledge found you serving as a soldier? Listen to the commander who gives just orders. As if weighed down with stupor and drunkenness, then, sober up, look about a little, and consider what the stones you worship want with you, and what you spend so vainly on matter. You are squandering your money and your life on ignorance, as your living on death, finding only this as the end of your vain hope. You are not able to pity yourselves, and you are not fit to be persuaded by those who pity you for your error, enslaved as you are to wicked custom; clinging to it by your own choice to your last breath, you are swept down to destruction, “because the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light.” Yet you could wipe away what stands in the way of salvation, vanity and wealth and fear, repeating the poet's words: “Where am I taking all these goods? And where am I wandering myself?” Will you not, then, throw away these empty fancies and renounce custom itself, saying to vainglory: “False dreams, farewell; you were nothing after all”?