Nilus of Ancyra→Heortasius|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To Heortasius the Deacon.
Everyone who sins removes himself far away, and is fenced off from God, not by place but by manner of life; and Gehenna takes possession of a region [an allusion to the "far country" of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:13]—that is, of a certain foreign way of living, alienated from the Better One [God]. And there, thereafter, he goes hungry, living prodigally, having squandered by a wicked choice the good condition that is according to nature. For where self-control does not appear, there is a mighty famine. The citizens of that country are understood to be the demons, who possess only the husks of sin [the "pods," Greek kerátia, of Luke 15:16] that look sweet and yet roughen the throat of the one who eats them.
Everyone who sins removes himself far away, and is fenced off from God, not by place but by manner of life; and Gehenna takes possession of a region [an allusion to the "far country" of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:13]—that is, of a certain foreign way of living, alienated from the Better One [God]. And there, thereafter, he goes hungry, living prodigally, having squandered by a wicked choice the good condition that is according to nature. For where self-control does not appear, there is a mighty famine. The citizens of that country are understood to be the demons, who possess only the husks of sin [the "pods," Greek kerátia, of Luke 15:16] that look sweet and yet roughen the throat of the one who eats them.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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.