Nilus of Ancyra→Conon|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To Conon, Member of the Civic Council [politeuomenos, a town councillor/curialis].
If the Lord brought you, who did not exist, into being, much more, when you already exist, even when you have been rotted away by sin and turned aside from your nature, will he be able to set you right again. For this is what the Master also wills, if you too are willing; for there is no wickedness that is not dissolved by the saving tears of repentance. And you could easily learn this if you reason it out and consider the Lord's fishhook, which drew up from the deep of unspeakable evil that tax collector [the apostle Matthew], a quarry hard to catch, and which made the mud into gold, and made the captive into a most excellent soldier and a writer of the divine Gospel. And how did he save the prostitute? And how did he show the robber [the penitent thief crucified beside Christ] to be worthy of paradise? And how did he set up the magi and sorcerers as good heralds of his own sojourning into this world? And how did he eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners, wishing out of compassion to benefit them and turn them back? How did he grant to the blasphemers and insolent men and persecutors to confess that which is better, and bestowed upon them to speak of God, and prepared them to lay down their own heads for the truth, and persuaded them to live no longer for themselves but for the one God alone, and to imitate the life of the heavenly angels while still living in the corruptible body, and to regard as refuse all things that are seen? And how did he [...] those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death [...] and wickedness, and self-chosen evil, and bring them out into the light, and urge them to abhor lawlessness, and persuade them to cast off all uncleanness, and transform them wholly, from top to bottom, toward purity and piety, and grant them the divine treasures of the divine mysteries? Reckoning, therefore, all these things and such as these, O man, never despair of salvation; but even if you are dragged down toward despondency and hopelessness by the devil, comfort yourself and exhort yourself when afflicted, and admonish yourself when worn down, and strengthen and restore yourself, and do not cease singing to your own heart and calling him benevolent toward humankind. For we do not have a Master who hates humankind, but as one who loves the soul and who has laid down his life for us we have gained the Lord and Savior Christ, the greatest physician of souls and bodies, who is superior to every disease and to every passion incurable to all human beings, and who is mighty above all things and overcomes every power of baseness. Therefore let us in no way despair, O soul that has sinned much and is deserving of eternal punishment.
To Conon, Member of the Civic Council [politeuomenos, a town councillor/curialis].
If the Lord brought you, who did not exist, into being, much more, when you already exist, even when you have been rotted away by sin and turned aside from your nature, will he be able to set you right again. For this is what the Master also wills, if you too are willing; for there is no wickedness that is not dissolved by the saving tears of repentance. And you could easily learn this if you reason it out and consider the Lord's fishhook, which drew up from the deep of unspeakable evil that tax collector [the apostle Matthew], a quarry hard to catch, and which made the mud into gold, and made the captive into a most excellent soldier and a writer of the divine Gospel. And how did he save the prostitute? And how did he show the robber [the penitent thief crucified beside Christ] to be worthy of paradise? And how did he set up the magi and sorcerers as good heralds of his own sojourning into this world? And how did he eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners, wishing out of compassion to benefit them and turn them back? How did he grant to the blasphemers and insolent men and persecutors to confess that which is better, and bestowed upon them to speak of God, and prepared them to lay down their own heads for the truth, and persuaded them to live no longer for themselves but for the one God alone, and to imitate the life of the heavenly angels while still living in the corruptible body, and to regard as refuse all things that are seen? And how did he [...] those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death [...] and wickedness, and self-chosen evil, and bring them out into the light, and urge them to abhor lawlessness, and persuade them to cast off all uncleanness, and transform them wholly, from top to bottom, toward purity and piety, and grant them the divine treasures of the divine mysteries? Reckoning, therefore, all these things and such as these, O man, never despair of salvation; but even if you are dragged down toward despondency and hopelessness by the devil, comfort yourself and exhort yourself when afflicted, and admonish yourself when worn down, and strengthen and restore yourself, and do not cease singing to your own heart and calling him benevolent toward humankind. For we do not have a Master who hates humankind, but as one who loves the soul and who has laid down his life for us we have gained the Lord and Savior Christ, the greatest physician of souls and bodies, who is superior to every disease and to every passion incurable to all human beings, and who is mighty above all things and overcomes every power of baseness. Therefore let us in no way despair, O soul that has sinned much and is deserving of eternal punishment.
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.