Marinus

Marinus is known only as a correspondent of Nilus of Ancyra (d. c. 430), to whom the abbot addressed at least ten short letters of spiritual direction in the early-5th-century Ancyran milieu of Galatia. The address lines reveal him as a man within the church hierarchy whose rank is given variously as monk, deacon, and presbyter across the letters, suggesting either a clerical career or differing recensions of the address. Nilus writes to him chiefly to console and admonish: he urges patient endurance of temptations and trials, warning against the assaults of "spiritual barbarians," and rebukes him for demanding to be heard in prayer while disobeying God's commandments, counseling him to seek the verdict of "the theater above" rather than the praise of envious men. Beyond these letters Marinus is otherwise unattested.