Olympius (correspondent of Nilus of Ancyra)

Olympius is known only as a correspondent of Nilus of Ancyra (d. c. 430), in the early-5th-century milieu of Ancyra (modern Ankara) in Galatia. The five surviving letters are striking for addressing him under inconsistent titles — "the Bishop," "the Quaestor" (a high imperial financial and legal official), and "the Scholasticus" (an advocate or lawyer) — so whether one man or several distinct correspondents are meant cannot be determined from the evidence. Nilus writes to him in two registers: pastoral correction, urging him against harshness lest he fall upon "the rock of divine indignation" (498) and against anger as something forbidden by the Lord (609); and scriptural instruction, explaining that Paul speaks in an assumed persona (ethopoiia) in Romans 7 (144, 145) and glossing Christ's words to Peter about John in John 21:22 (610). Beyond his role as recipient of this spiritual and exegetical guidance, he is otherwise unattested.