For
what has a glory, destined to perish with the world, profited those
men themselves who have written on mere secular matters? Or what
benefit has posterity derived from reading of Hector as a warrior, or
Socrates as an expounder of philosophy? There can be no profit in
such things, since it is not only folly to imitate the persons
referred to, but absolute madness not to assail them with the utmost
severity. For, in truth, those persons who estimate human life only
by present actions, have consigned their hopes to fables, and their
souls to the tomb. In fact, they gave themselves up to be perpetuated
simply in the memory of mortals, whereas it is the duty of man rather
to seek after eternal life than an eternal memorial and that, not by
writing, or fighting, or philosophizing, but by living a pious, holy,
and religious life.
--
Saint Sulpicius Severus from
his work "On
the Life of St. Martin"
