Naucratius

Naucratius is known only as a correspondent of Nilus of Ancyra (d. c. 430), to whom Nilus addressed at least five short letters of scriptural exegesis, set in the early-fifth-century Ancyra milieu of Galatia, Asia Minor. The letters answer specific interpretive questions he evidently put to Nilus: the meaning of Joseph not "knowing" Mary until the Nativity (Matthew 1:25), the Pauline "remnant" of those saved by grace (Romans 9-11), the prophets figured as bees and Scripture as their hive (Proverbs 24:13), and the parable of the lost drachma as an image of the Incarnation (Luke 15:8); one reply pushes back on his suggestion that "all are saved." The tenor is that of a learner receiving terse doctrinal and exegetical instruction, suggesting Naucratius was a monk, cleric, or pious student under Nilus's spiritual direction, though no office or biographical detail is given. He is otherwise unattested.