Euphemius

Euphemius is known only as a correspondent of the ascetic writer Nilus of Ancyra (d. c. 430), who addresses seven surviving letters to him. The letters reveal a monastic figure: he is styled both 'the Monk' and 'the Archimandrite,' the latter implying he headed a monastic community. Nilus writes to him as a spiritual director would to a disciple under strain, consoling him over the 'anguish of his heart,' the assaults of 'Egyptian demons,' the burning of lust, acedia (despondency), and envious thoughts, and urging him through dense scriptural exhortation (Psalms, Exodus, Matthew 11:28) to persevere in the monastic rule rather than grow slothful or chase worldly gain. Beyond this correspondence with Nilus he is otherwise unattested; the implied context is the early-fifth-century monastic milieu of Ancyra (modern Ankara) in Galatia.