Clement of Alexandria: INSTRUCTOR (PAEDAGOGUS) - Part II, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

Clement of Alexandria Home Page  Clement of Alexandria in Print

This Part: 134 Pages

Page 10

Chap. IX.--On Sleep.

How, in due course, we are to go to sleep, in remembrance of the precepts of temperance, we must now say. For after the repast, having given thanks to God for our participation in our enjoyments, and for the [happy] passing of the day, [1477] our talk must be turned to sleep. Magnificence of bed-clothes, gold-embroidered carpets, and smooth carpets worked with gold, and long fine robes of purple, and costly fleecy cloaks, and manufactured rugs of purple, and mantles of thick pile, and couches softer than sleep, are to be banished.

For, besides the reproach of voluptuousness, sleeping on downy feathers is injurious, when our bodies fall down as into a yawning hollow, on account of the softness of the bedding.

For they are not convenient for sleepers turning in them, on account of the bed rising into a hill on either side of the body. Nor are they suitable for the digestion of the food, but rather for burning it up, and so destroying the nutriment. But stretching one's self on even couches, affording a kind of natural gymnasium for sleep, contributes to the digestion of the food. And those that can roll on other beds, having this, as it were, for a natural gymnasium for sleep, digest food more easily, and render themselves fitter for emergencies. Moreover, silver-footed couches argue great ostentation; and the ivory on beds, the body having left the soul, [1478] is not permissible for holy men, being a lazy contrivance for rest.

[1477] [Family prayers, apparently.]

[1478] See infra. Sleep, he supposes, frees the soul as really, not so absolutely, as death:--

"Th' immortal mind that hath forsook

Her mansion in this fleshly nook." Penseroso, line 91.]

Previous Page / First / Next Page of Clement - Instructor

Clement of Alexandria Home Page ||| More Church Fathers

Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/clement-alexandria/paedagogus.asp?pg=10