Letter 380

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

To Syrianus the Monk.

One who devotes himself to the monastic order must also conduct himself soberly and vigilantly; for our contest is more difficult than the contest of the wrestling-ground. There the bodies of athletes are thrown down, yet are able to be set upright again with ease; but here souls fall down, and these, once they have been overturned, can scarcely be raised up again.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Προσέχοντος τῷ μοναδικῷ τάγματι, καὶ νήφαλες κεχρῆσθαι δεῖ · τοῦ γὰρ γυμνικοῦ ἀγῶνος, ὁ ἡμέτερος.
ἀγὼν δυσχερέστερός ἐστιν, ἐκεῖ μὲν γὰρ ἀθλητῶν σώματα κλίνεται ὀρθοῦσθαι ῥᾳδίως δυνάμενα, ἐνταῦθα δὲ ψυχαὶ καταπίπτουσιν, ἃς ἅπαξ ἀνατραπείσας, μόλις ἐστὶν ἀνεγεῖραι.

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