Nilus of Ancyra→Asclepiades|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To Asclepiades.
If, when a human physician makes his rounds to attend you, you do not demand from him an account of the treatment, but only beg to be healed, how is it that with God you go searching after the manner of your salvation? Therefore, whenever you approach the Lord through repentance, do not busy yourself over the manner in which your transgressions are cleansed away; rather, only believe, and marvel, and worship, and sing praise. But if not, then tell me the manner of the divine craft: how, out of a single-natured substance (I mean the dust), man has been fashioned a rational living being, composed of so many parts and members—if indeed you are willing to consider it—with what is sinewy, what is bony, what is hairy, what is of the nails, what is fleshy, what is marrowy, what is veined, and the rest of the body's variety and arrangement. And if you cannot state it—the manner, that is, by which you were constructed by God—then neither should you demand the account by which a soul is healed by divine power and love for humankind, and is cleansed of its many sins; for where God is at work, one must not pry into the manner of salvation.
If, when a human physician makes his rounds to attend you, you do not demand from him an account of the treatment, but only beg to be healed, how is it that with God you go searching after the manner of your salvation? Therefore, whenever you approach the Lord through repentance, do not busy yourself over the manner in which your transgressions are cleansed away; rather, only believe, and marvel, and worship, and sing praise. But if not, then tell me the manner of the divine craft: how, out of a single-natured substance (I mean the dust), man has been fashioned a rational living being, composed of so many parts and members—if indeed you are willing to consider it—with what is sinewy, what is bony, what is hairy, what is of the nails, what is fleshy, what is marrowy, what is veined, and the rest of the body's variety and arrangement. And if you cannot state it—the manner, that is, by which you were constructed by God—then neither should you demand the account by which a soul is healed by divine power and love for humankind, and is cleansed of its many sins; for where God is at work, one must not pry into the manner of salvation.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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.