Letter 932

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

If the smell of a river fish [an allusion to the Book of Tobit, where the smoke of a fish's heart and liver drives off the demon] had the power to cast out the demon and to chase it far away from the daughter of Raguel [Sarah, in Tobit 6-8], how much more will the drawing near of the fragrance of the Holy Spirit drive out from you the pleasure-loving spirit that lies hidden within the members of the body, and that rouses up the waves of pleasure and of desire, befogging the thoughts unceasingly with its smoke.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Εἰ ὀσμὴ ἰχθύος ποταμιαίου ἴσχυσεν ἐκβαλεῖν τὸ
δαιμόνιον, καὶ μακρὰν φυγαδεῦσαι ἀπὸ τῆς τοῦ Ῥα-
γουὴλ θυγατρός, πολλῷ μᾶλλον ὁ προσεγγισμὸς τῆς
ὀσμῆς τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος ἐξελάσει ἀπὸ σοῦ τὸ
φιλῆδον πνεῦμα τὸ ἐγκρυπταζόμενον ἐν τοῖς τοῦ
σώματος, μέλεσι, καὶ ἐξεγεῖρον τὰ τῆς ἡδονῆς κύ-
ματα, καὶ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας, τοὺς λογισμοὺς καπνίζον
ἀδιαλείπτως.

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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