Letter 485

To Onesimus, a Leading Citizen. The things you insatiably heap together, and have reckoned to possess, are not yours; for they will pass over to other persons. The toil is yours, but the enjoyment belongs to another. Why, then, do you lay claim to what belongs to others as though it were your own, fashioning for yourself burdensome heaps of material wealth, and drawing down upon yourself the woe of the prophet? For "Woe," he says, "to him who gathers what is not his own, and weighs down his collar [yoke] heavily" [Habakkuk 2:6] -- the man who is destined to lose his substance, and who, by his insatiable disposition, procures for himself eternal punishment.

Ἄπερ ἀπλήστως συναθροίζεις, καὶ κτᾶσθαι νενόμικας, οὐχ ὑπάρχουσι σὰ· εἰς γὰρ ἕτερα μεταλεύσονται πρόσωπα. Ὁ μὲν γὰρ μόχθος σὸς, ὁ δὲ βίος ἀλλότριος. Διατί οὖν ὥσπερ οἰκείων τῶν ἀλλοτρίων ἀντιποιῇ, βαρείας σαυτῷ τὰς ὕλης κατα... σκευάζων, καὶ τὸν ταλανισμὸν τοῦ προφήτου ἐφελ- κεις; Οὐαὶ γάρ, φησὶ, τῷ συνάγοντι τὰ οὐκ ὄντα αὐ- τοῦ, καὶ βαρύνοντι τὸν κλοιὸν αὐτοῦ στιβαρῶς, καὶ τὴν ὕπαρξιν ἀπολλύναι μέλλοντι, ποριζομένῳ δὲ διὰ τὸν ἄπληστον τρόπον τὴν αἰώνιον κόλασιν.