Letter 916

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

The wretched man is accustomed always to press onward toward the things that harm him, since many demons are continually waging war against him and urging him toward evil. But let us combat force with force. For the one who contends must correct every filthy suspicion, and be angry with himself, and call upon the Higher Power before his reasoning grows slack and is softened. For this reason it is necessary to make thin the fattened flesh, because a fat belly does not know how to bring forth a subtle mind.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Εἴωθεν ὁ ταλαίπωρος ἄνθρωπος ἀεὶ πρὸς τὰ βλάπτοντα κατεπείγεσθαι, πολλῶν δαιμόνων κατ’ αὐτοῦ στρατευομένων διαπαντὸς, καὶ προτρεπομένων εἰς τὸ κακόν. Ἀλλὰ ἡμεῖς τῇ βίᾳ τὴν βίαν καταγωνισώμεθα. Ὀφείλει γὰρ ὁ ἀγωνιζόμενος διορθοῦσθαι πᾶσαν ὑπόνοιαν ῥυπαρὰν, καὶ ὀργίζεσθαι πρὸς ἑαυτὸν, καὶ τὸ κρεῖττον ἐπικαλεῖσθαι πρὸς τοῦ χαυνηθῆναι, καὶ μαλαχθῆναι τὸν λογισμόν. Διὰ τοῦτο ἀναγκαῖον λεπτύνειν τὸ παχυνθὲν σαρκίον, διότι παχεῖα γαστὴρ λεπτὸν οὐκ οἶδε τίκτειν νοῦν.

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

Related Letters