Nilus of Ancyra→Kyriakos|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To the same person.
There are certain conditions and pure states among human beings such that one occupies the place of the sun, another that of the moon, and another that of a star [cf. 1 Corinthians 15:41]. And you could see a certain man who, like Solomon, was often glorified with the wisdom from above, but who afterward, through dozing off and through the slackening of his attentiveness, was forsaken by God, and who, having stripped off both reverence and the fear of the Mightier One, fell down into impiety and into great sins, so that you could say that the sun was turned about [or: was confounded], having fallen against all hope into [...], stripped of the guard of the Holy Spirit, while Nebuchadnezzar [the Babylonian king who destroyed Jerusalem, here an allegory for the devil] marched up against them in war and broke through the [wall] by satanic devices, and blinded the king—I mean the mind—just as he did Zedekiah [the last king of Judah, blinded and carried to Babylon, 2 Kings 25:7], and bound the children, and led them away into the allegorical Babylon, and took the holy things of David and of Solomon and of the kings who followed them—the things in the treasuries of the heart, and the rest, the things procured and gathered and constructed over many years with toil and zeal—setting fire to the temple of the Lord and making ready for it to be trampled under profane feet. And on this account I heard the Psalmist crying out in lamentations, "Have mercy on me" [Psalm 56:1, LXX 55], because many are the demons warring against me from on high and trampling me down the whole day long, since you have set my enemies upon my head; and I heard Jeremiah lamenting that "the soul that formerly was a ruler through her good achievements, now taken by the law of war, has been made a tributary, serving the devil in her sins" [cf. Lamentations 1:1]. Yet the one who has fallen into such evils, if he does not out of faintheartedness give up in despair to the very end, but, having repented, turns back to the Lord and renews his ancient philosophic deeds, the Lordly grace comes back again to him; and concerning this too the prophetic oracle will declare that "I will return and rebuild the fallen tabernacle of David [Amos 9:11], and its demolished good achievements and divine gifts and the inner knowledge, and I will set them upright and rebuild them"; and "the latter glory shall be greater than the former, says the Lord Almighty" [Haggai 2:9]. I have written these things as a surpassing reply to the matters contained in your letter.
There are certain conditions and pure states among human beings such that one occupies the place of the sun, another that of the moon, and another that of a star [cf. 1 Corinthians 15:41]. And you could see a certain man who, like Solomon, was often glorified with the wisdom from above, but who afterward, through dozing off and through the slackening of his attentiveness, was forsaken by God, and who, having stripped off both reverence and the fear of the Mightier One, fell down into impiety and into great sins, so that you could say that the sun was turned about [or: was confounded], having fallen against all hope into [...], stripped of the guard of the Holy Spirit, while Nebuchadnezzar [the Babylonian king who destroyed Jerusalem, here an allegory for the devil] marched up against them in war and broke through the [wall] by satanic devices, and blinded the king—I mean the mind—just as he did Zedekiah [the last king of Judah, blinded and carried to Babylon, 2 Kings 25:7], and bound the children, and led them away into the allegorical Babylon, and took the holy things of David and of Solomon and of the kings who followed them—the things in the treasuries of the heart, and the rest, the things procured and gathered and constructed over many years with toil and zeal—setting fire to the temple of the Lord and making ready for it to be trampled under profane feet. And on this account I heard the Psalmist crying out in lamentations, "Have mercy on me" [Psalm 56:1, LXX 55], because many are the demons warring against me from on high and trampling me down the whole day long, since you have set my enemies upon my head; and I heard Jeremiah lamenting that "the soul that formerly was a ruler through her good achievements, now taken by the law of war, has been made a tributary, serving the devil in her sins" [cf. Lamentations 1:1]. Yet the one who has fallen into such evils, if he does not out of faintheartedness give up in despair to the very end, but, having repented, turns back to the Lord and renews his ancient philosophic deeds, the Lordly grace comes back again to him; and concerning this too the prophetic oracle will declare that "I will return and rebuild the fallen tabernacle of David [Amos 9:11], and its demolished good achievements and divine gifts and the inner knowledge, and I will set them upright and rebuild them"; and "the latter glory shall be greater than the former, says the Lord Almighty" [Haggai 2:9]. I have written these things as a surpassing reply to the matters contained in your letter.
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.