Nilus of Ancyra→Euthymius|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To the Same Person.
At times the demonic thoughts lie hidden within us, and at other times they peer out toward what is outside, pressing us hard toward sin committed through deeds. But when God is entreated by us, he scatters them and banishes them from us, and then, having come to our senses again out of the confusion, we gather ourselves together and rekindle ourselves in the spirit, as though risen from the dead, and being lifted up to the height of dispassion [apatheia, freedom from the passions] that is according to nature, we give glory and sing hymns to the Lord, bringing the course of our own life to a good end well-pleasing to God. And this, I think, is what was said by the blessed David, that "All those who work iniquity have peered out, so that they may be utterly destroyed; and my horn shall be exalted like that of the unicorn [monokeros, the single-horned wild ox of the Septuagint]" [Psalm 91 (92):8-11 LXX] - that is, the power of divine dispassion - "and my old age in rich oil"; for by the spiritual oil of the Higher One, he says, the man who contends in the struggle shall be made rich, the man who was before worn down and dried up like salted fish by the harassment of his manifold passions.
At times the demonic thoughts lie hidden within us, and at other times they peer out toward what is outside, pressing us hard toward sin committed through deeds. But when God is entreated by us, he scatters them and banishes them from us, and then, having come to our senses again out of the confusion, we gather ourselves together and rekindle ourselves in the spirit, as though risen from the dead, and being lifted up to the height of dispassion [apatheia, freedom from the passions] that is according to nature, we give glory and sing hymns to the Lord, bringing the course of our own life to a good end well-pleasing to God. And this, I think, is what was said by the blessed David, that "All those who work iniquity have peered out, so that they may be utterly destroyed; and my horn shall be exalted like that of the unicorn [monokeros, the single-horned wild ox of the Septuagint]" [Psalm 91 (92):8-11 LXX] - that is, the power of divine dispassion - "and my old age in rich oil"; for by the spiritual oil of the Higher One, he says, the man who contends in the struggle shall be made rich, the man who was before worn down and dried up like salted fish by the harassment of his manifold passions.
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.