Breaking the Chains

Abrumpatur illa interminabilis saecularium negotiorum catena, et ille de necessitatibus multis unus per totam vitam labor. Disrumpamus inanium curarum vincula, quorum succedentibus sibi nexibus implicatis, in quibus semer occuptio nostra quasi incipit. Removeantur illae tam vacuae quam cohaerentes sibi causae, in quibus, quoad vivitur, studium mortalium, dum subinde negotiis inchoatur, numquam finitur. Quarum rerum infatigabilis intentio iam brevem et aretam per se vitam, hanc etiam arctissimam reddidit. Per quae etiam nunc vana guadia, nunc acerbi morores, nunc anxia vota, nunc suspecti metus veniunt. Abjiciantur postremo illa omnia, quae praesentem hanc vitam faciunt brevem occupationi, longam dolori. Repudiemus mundi parum fidi vitam utrobique suspectam, apud quam perinde alta atque humilia parum tuta sunt. Obteruntur humilitate depressa, nutani celsa fastigio. Pone quem volueris statum, non apud infima istic, non apud summa requiescitur: gravem turbinis sortem utraque conditio non effugit. Subjacet contumeliae minor, major invidiae.  Epistola Paraenetica ad Valerianum Cognatum, de Contemptu Mundi, Sanctus Eucherius Lugdonensis

Tear off those wearisome chains of secular employments, that one toil of dealing with many exigencies through the whole of life. Break apart those chains of inane cares, in whose successive knots one is entangled, and in every one of which travail is ever renewed. Cast away that succession of vain causes in which, as long as one lives in the discipline of mortality, cares never end. These things are indefatigable and make this short and arid life more constrained. Through them now empty joy, now bitter distress, now anxious vows, now looming fear. Let all those things be thrown aside which make this brief life in respect of their employment but long pain. Let us reject the world and have little faith in it, in which the low and the high have little security. Humble things are trodden down further, and the high totter toward their fall. Choose what state you will: neither in the lowest or the highest is there rest; both conditions have their weighty share of troubles from which one may not flee. The little man is subject to contempt, the great man to envy. Epistle of Exhortation to his Kinsman Valerian, On the Contempt of the World, Saint Eucherius of Lyon