Silvanus

Silvanus is known only as a recipient of letters from Nilus of Ancyra (d. c. 430), placing him in the early-5th-century Ancyran milieu of Galatia in Asia Minor. He is addressed in one letter as "Silvanus the Bishop" and elsewhere simply "to the same person," and Nilus writes to him in a sustained register of scriptural and theological instruction: a series of short exegetical notes developing the typology of spiritual nourishment (the bread, water, meat, and wine of Scripture read as the Eucharist and the higher knowledge of Christ), and a defense of Christ's willing Passion against the Arians and Eunomians. One letter in the group is addressed instead "to Silvanus the Cenobite," a monk in a communal monastery, counseling humility and obedience in ascetic practice; whether this is the same Silvanus is uncertain. Beyond this correspondence with Nilus he is otherwise unattested, and no birth or death dates are recoverable.