Nilus of Ancyra→Eleutherius|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To the same person.
Learn from the account concerning Dinah, the daughter of Jacob [Genesis 34], that it belongs truly to a girlish and womanish soul to undertake things beyond one's own condition and power, and to be deceived by an overconfident estimation of oneself as adequate to them. For if Dinah had not rashly schooled herself to put herself forward in the gazing upon the affairs of the natives [the women of the land of Shechem], as though she were so strong that she could not even be convicted by the pleasure taken in these things, the discerning faculty of her soul would not have been ruined out of season, torn apart through the imagination of things perceived by the senses, since she consorted with a reasoning that was not yet healthy, noble, and manly.
Learn from the account concerning Dinah, the daughter of Jacob [Genesis 34], that it belongs truly to a girlish and womanish soul to undertake things beyond one's own condition and power, and to be deceived by an overconfident estimation of oneself as adequate to them. For if Dinah had not rashly schooled herself to put herself forward in the gazing upon the affairs of the natives [the women of the land of Shechem], as though she were so strong that she could not even be convicted by the pleasure taken in these things, the discerning faculty of her soul would not have been ruined out of season, torn apart through the imagination of things perceived by the senses, since she consorted with a reasoning that was not yet healthy, noble, and manly.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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.