Nilus of Ancyra→one without|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To one without an address [the manuscript gives no name].
My modest measure of knowledge was added to me by withdrawal into solitude. For he who is nourished in the midst of tumults, and yet wishes to know the things of heaven, fails to notice that what is sown among thorns is choked by them [cf. Matthew 13:7, 22], and that he who has had no leisure cannot come to know God.
Having chosen the narrow path, and having given your covenants to God on its behalf, you are now traveling the broad road that leads to death [cf. Matthew 7:13-14]: for the unpleasantness here brings the punishment there, while the present affliction and the constraining of one's appetites prepares the enjoyment of the good things to come. The monk who is sound in mind must be a tested weigher of the scales, allowing himself to incline to neither side of the balance-pans: not toward strange behavior through abstinence from food, nor toward dissoluteness through excess of food; eating not so much as to starve, and clothing himself in such things as adorn those who go uncovered, he prepares the body to be a most excellent vehicle for the soul, and a rudder easy for the steersman to handle, and well-fitted weapons for the soldier, and for the art of harmony a tuneful lyre. For he who trains the body in luxury and beautifies it with fine garments prepares it to grow wanton, and kindles it toward improper desires, and corrupts its good condition, and dissolves it through much softness, and makes it an enemy to the soul. Cease, then, doing the one and the other.
A life without speech is by nature more profitable than speech without a life. For the one, even when silent, gives profit; the other, even when shouting, gives only trouble. But if both speech and life run together, they will produce the very image of all philosophy.
To one without an address [the manuscript gives no name].
My modest measure of knowledge was added to me by withdrawal into solitude. For he who is nourished in the midst of tumults, and yet wishes to know the things of heaven, fails to notice that what is sown among thorns is choked by them [cf. Matthew 13:7, 22], and that he who has had no leisure cannot come to know God.
Having chosen the narrow path, and having given your covenants to God on its behalf, you are now traveling the broad road that leads to death [cf. Matthew 7:13-14]: for the unpleasantness here brings the punishment there, while the present affliction and the constraining of one's appetites prepares the enjoyment of the good things to come. The monk who is sound in mind must be a tested weigher of the scales, allowing himself to incline to neither side of the balance-pans: not toward strange behavior through abstinence from food, nor toward dissoluteness through excess of food; eating not so much as to starve, and clothing himself in such things as adorn those who go uncovered, he prepares the body to be a most excellent vehicle for the soul, and a rudder easy for the steersman to handle, and well-fitted weapons for the soldier, and for the art of harmony a tuneful lyre. For he who trains the body in luxury and beautifies it with fine garments prepares it to grow wanton, and kindles it toward improper desires, and corrupts its good condition, and dissolves it through much softness, and makes it an enemy to the soul. Cease, then, doing the one and the other.
A life without speech is by nature more profitable than speech without a life. For the one, even when silent, gives profit; the other, even when shouting, gives only trouble. But if both speech and life run together, they will produce the very image of all philosophy.
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.