Letter 561
To Bebianus the Bishop.
To cut away, through hardship, the sting of lust and the pleasures that inflame within the body, and to render them powerless—this is what the divine Apostle [Paul] calls bodily exercise. But godliness is profitable for all things [1 Timothy 4:8]; and this would consist in being able, with God working together with us, to make the passion-laden memories vanish utterly, and thereafter to acquire a firm purity of mind.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Τὸ περικόψαι διὰ κακοπαθείας, καὶ καταργῆσαι
τὸν οἶστρον, καὶ τὰς ἐν τῷ σώματι φλεγμαινούσας
ἡδονάς, τοῦτό φησιν ὁ θεῖος Ἀπόστολος σωματικὴν
γυμνασίαν. Ἡ δέ γε εὐσέβεια πρὸς πάντα ὠφέλιμός
ἐστιν· αὐτὴ δ’ ἂν εἴη, τὸ δυνηθῆναι τοῦ Θεοῦ συν-
εργοῦντος, τὰς ἐμπαθεῖς ἐξαφανίσαι εἰς τὸ παντελὲς
μνήμας, καὶ βεβαίαν λοιπὸν καθαρότητα κτήσασθαι
διανοίας.
Revision history
- 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
Cyprian had visited Jerome at Bethlehem and had asked him to write an exposition of Psalm XC. in simple language such as might be readily understood. With this request Jerome now complies, giving a very full account of the psalm, verse by verse, and bringing the treasures of his learning and especially his knowledge of Hebrew to bear upon it.
Chrysostom praises Aurelius of Carthage for laboring to bring troubled churches into peace.
Chrysostom tells Proba that distance cannot hide her warm love and zeal.