Letter 408

Nilus of AncyraDionysius|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted

To Dionysius the Monk.

It is necessary that we too, imitating Abraham, offer to the Lord the tithe of the choicest spoils [as Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils, Genesis 14:20]; and this would be the one commandment among the ten that surpasses the rest, on which the Law hangs, and the Prophets [Matthew 22:40] — that is, to love God out of the whole soul and out of the whole strength. For the divine Apostle defines love as the fullness of the Law [Romans 13:10].

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.

Latin / Greek Original

Ἀναγκαῖον καὶ ἡμᾶς μιμουμένους τὸν Ἀβραὰμ, τὴν τῶν ἀκροθινίων δεκάτην προσφέρειν τῷ Κυρίῳ· αὕτη δ’ ἂν εἴη τῶν δέκα ἐντολῶν ἡ ὑπερέχουσα, ἀφ’ ἧς ὁ νόμος κρέμαται, καὶ οἱ προφῆται· τουτέστι τὸ ἀγαπῆσαι τὸν Θεὸν ἐξ ὅλης ψυχῆς, καὶ ἐξ ὅλης δυνάμεως. Πλήρωμα γὰρ νόμου τὴν ἀγάπην ὁρίζεται ὁ θεῖος Ἀπόστολος.

Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern nilus ancyra workflow v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: project source import

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