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FOR I remember that I had so often resisted the desire for food, that
having abstained from taking any for two or three days, my mind was not
troubled even by the recollection of any eatables and also that sleep was
by the assaults of the devil so far removed from my eyes, that for several
days and nights I used to pray the Lord to grant a little sleep to my eyes;
and then I felt that I was in greater peril from the want of food and sleep
than from struggling against sloth and gluttony. And so as we ought to be
careful not to fall into dangerous effeminacy through desire for bodily
gratification, nor indulge ourselves with eating before the right time nor
take too much, so also we ought to refresh ourselves with food and sleep at
the proper time even if we dislike it. For the struggle in each case is
caused by the devices of the enemy; and excessive abstinence is still more
injurious to us than careless satiety: for from this latter the
intervention of a healthy compunction will raise us to the right measure of
strictness, and not from the former.
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