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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
The same thing happens as every one may perceive with regard to sleep. For not a soft couch, nor a bedstead overlaid with silver, nor the quietness that exists throughout the house, nor anything else of this kind, are so generally wont to make sleep sweet and pleasant, as labour and fatigue, and the need of sleep, and drowsiness when one lies down. And to this particular the experience of facts, nay, before actual experience, the assertion of the Scriptures bears witness. …
Western Saints
Ambrose of Milan
Ecclesiastes sees that riches are kept for ill by one who possesses them, for their loss causes a very great anxiety and disquiet. Indeed they are lost, for they are left here and can be of no advantage to one who is dead. And so, the dead man felt anxiety in regard to them and could not find rest; he left what would bring him shame and did not take with himself what he could keep. …
Jerome
"There is a sickening evil that I have seen under the sun; riches hoarded by their owner to his misfortune, and he loses those riches in some bad venture. If he begets a son, he has nothing in hand. As he had come from his mother's womb, naked will he return, as he had come; he can salvage nothing from his labour to take with him. This too, is a sickening evil: Exactly as he came he must depart, and what did he gain in exchange for toiling for the wind? …
Bonaventure
Here thirdly he shows that riches are to be spurned, because they afflict and do not permit a man to rest: whence they take away the sleep of quiet. Therefore he says: "Sweet is the sleep of the worker, whether he eats little or much." And thus the worker and laborer sometimes rests: Sirach 31: "The sleep of health is in a frugal man: he will sleep until morning, and his soul will delight in him." But on the contrary concerning the rich man: he does not rest: whence he adds: "But the fullness of the rich man does not permit him to …
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