Demetrius (correspondent of Nilus of Ancyra)

Demetrius is known only as a recipient of six short letters from Nilus of Ancyra, the ascetic writer active in the early-5th-century Ancyra (Galatia) milieu. The letters address him variously as "the Monk" and once pointedly as "the Heretic," and their content matches both labels: Nilus gives him monastic direction (warning against the arrogance of solitaries who frequent law-courts, urging perseverance in the ascetic struggle, and describing the demon of fornication that plants lustful images in the mind) while also fielding his exegetical questions and correcting his reading of Scripture, insisting for instance that Christ's words on marriage be taken literally before any allegory is applied. He thus appears as a monk under Nilus's spiritual guidance whose doctrinal or interpretive tendencies the sender found suspect. Beyond this correspondence he is otherwise unattested, and the letters place him nowhere specific.