Verse 12: 'Your memory shall be likened to ashes.' 42. The memory of the proud is likened to ashes snatched away by the wind, and to mire. — All who by earthly thought are conformed to this world strive, through everything they do, to leave behind for this world the memory of themselves. Some by the titles of wars, some by the lofty walls of buildings, some by learned books of secular teachings, labour intently, and build for themselves a name of memory. But since life itself runs the more swiftly to its end, what in it shall stand fixed, when even it, swiftly moving, passes away? For the breeze snatches away ashes, as it is written: 'Not so the ungodly, not so, but like the dust which the wind casts forth from the face of the earth' (Ps. 1:4).
Rightly therefore is the memory of fools likened to ashes, because it is placed there where it may be snatched away by the breeze. For however much anyone labours for the perfecting of the glory of his own name, he has placed his memory as it were like ashes, because the wind of mortality snatches this away the more quickly. Against which, concerning the just it is written: 'The just shall be in everlasting remembrance' (Ps. 112:6). For by this very thing, that he imprints his deeds upon the eyes of God alone, he fixes the name of his memory in eternity. There follows: