Nilus of Ancyra→Unknown|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
If anyone, impaled upon the idol of a shameful desire, begins to turn this over within himself, and to dwell upon it, and to commune with the passion, he will be utterly enfeebled, and he will give his consent, and he will become a slave to the one who has corroded his ruling faculty [the hegemonikon, the governing part of the soul in Greek philosophy] and softened it with an unholy lust; and he will be made wretched, and he will be made miserable, and he will dash his own life to ruin. Let him flee the rotten fantasies as one would a serpent and some man-devouring lion; for it truly befits a Christian to imagine only the many-flowered forms of the virtues of Christ.
If anyone, impaled upon the idol of a shameful desire, begins to turn this over within himself, and to dwell upon it, and to commune with the passion, he will be utterly enfeebled, and he will give his consent, and he will become a slave to the one who has corroded his ruling faculty [the hegemonikon, the governing part of the soul in Greek philosophy] and softened it with an unholy lust; and he will be made wretched, and he will be made miserable, and he will dash his own life to ruin. Let him flee the rotten fantasies as one would a serpent and some man-devouring lion; for it truly befits a Christian to imagine only the many-flowered forms of the virtues of Christ.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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.