Nilus of Ancyra→Domninus|c. 415 AD|nilus ancyra|From Ancyra|AI-assisted
To Domninus the Younger, a Leading Citizen [proteuon, a municipal magistrate of first rank].
Concerning the things you asked of me, I now indicate them to you. But do you engrave them on your memory, on account of the words of forgetfulness. And now do not demand that I say what is agreeable and untroubling about those who possess immobility by nature; for I find few, like certain lifeless stones, who have complete insensibility toward the passion, and to such a degree that they do not even undergo any emission in their sleep. But this is a gift of God, as it is for those who are born eunuchs from their mother's womb. As for the explanations of such a gift, God alone could know them, who has bestowed it upon certain persons who struggled not at all and toiled not at all. But concerning the matters that are in reasonings and in manifold ticklings, in the fiery seething, and in the desires of the body, now to you, my best child: secure your youth above all, binding it fast and bridling it with the fear of God and with the expectation of the eternal punishments. For if you are zealous to grow strong against sin, and to contend and to box against the ten thousand shameful reasonings that are insinuated, and against the inflamed motions of the flesh, I know well that you will much congratulate yourself on the most noble manliness and on the chaste mind, and you will approve yourself and praise yourself, and you will pass through human life in unspeakable joy and gladness of heart. But if, somewhat slackened by the exhortations of brief and vain pleasure, you allow your mind to be taken captive, and you are defeated by the sting, know well that you will be grieved, and you will be cast down by the blows of conscience, and will revile yourself ten thousand times and find fault with yourself.
The many-stained and many-formed demon of fornication tempts one man in one way, and troubles others in other ways. To some of the young it presents itself more quickly, to others more slowly; and some it taught corruption around their twelfth year, while others, who had reached their eighteenth year, it hooked with the passion, and yet others, who were over thirty years of age, against all expectation, it dragged down into the pit of shameful conduct. And as for how the accursed demon teaches the thing even to those inexperienced in the passion of fornication, be astonished: for while the boy is often lying upon his bed in the midday hours, the demon, standing over him in great stillness like a deceitful and cunning serpent, speaks to the soul through the imaginations, as though in the person of some male or female, and urges him persistently toward the abominable passion; and sometimes, even stroking the boy's head, it drives away sleep, so that thereafter, being awake and having nothing to do regarding the filthy reasonings, he may be occupied and may chatter idly among the shameful counsels, and so the more easily learn fornication. But if the young man is borne down into sleep, again through dreams it sets upon him, having painted the sin exactly, and having touched the little body and cast in a burning, it again contrives the appearance of some man or woman, irrationally and in a manner hard to discern, displaying nothing fornicatory, as it would seem, but mere friendship and an insatiable affection. Yet the aim of the demon in this drama looks not to a good but to an evil end. To others it openly and hotly urges the carrying out of the heart's desire into deed. One man it brings toward pleasure through the company of his fellow youths; another, through certain kinds of lawlessness of which it is not fitting to speak, it digs out from divine chastity.
Since, then, others are bound together by the most wicked demon of fornication and hunted toward destruction, with all your power fence yourself round with the enclosures of purity, that you may not suffer that which the prophet says in the person of those who are ensnared: that "I hastened not to look, because I have rather called upon faithlessness and wretchedness." For every person who does not hearken to the words of the Lord, toward the [...] of virtue and the gloom of the passion of fornication, is dragged toward the wretchedness of the abomination, being hurried along by the filthy demon that persuaded him; for the human being for the most part inclines toward the will of the flesh and of the demon. The word of purity in Scripture said, therefore, to those who contend: "There comes an hour that you should depart from me and leave me alone." For easily a person departs from the holy and blessed life, and entangles himself in the reproachful and shameful labor; and going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and falling among robbers, that is, the soul-destroying demons, he is stripped of the garments of austerity and of struggle, and receives the blows of uncleanness and of terrible incontinence, and is left half-dead before God. For to remember repentance at all, and a change for the better, hints at the half of eternal life. And he will have time also for a complete life. By life I mean that which is rooted through the zeal of many efforts and through fruits worthy of firm repentance. But may you yourself not need so great an affliction, and sackcloth, and ashes, and rendings, and bitter weeping and lamentation, which indeed those endure who reap and gather in, in their wretchedness, the brief season of the pleasure of repentance. And you will stand higher than the nets of the enemy, if indeed you are zealous never at all to come outside the walls of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is interpreted "mountain of peace"; which name, according to its obvious sense, signifies a well-pleasing and pure manner of life. For fleshly pleasure is not a mountain of peace, but a mountain of battle and of war, and of disturbance, and of disorder, and of uproar, and of squall, and of the successive waves of passion, and of sin, and of unproclaimed purpose. For pleasure can never rest or be calmed in those who have fallen under it and been defeated by it; but like some barbarian mistress it torments with the blows of lecheries, and exacts tribute relentlessly, and the tribute is forced from those enslaved to their faults, granting almost no respite to those who have fallen. For the divine oracle also says: "Your time is always most ready at hand. But my time is not at hand." Nor does freedom of speech readily appear; because human beings, more gladly defeated by corruption and loving the poison of pleasure at every season, hasten by night and by day to serve the evil gladly. But the kingdom of virtue and its lordship the many are perhaps unwilling at any time to consider or to ponder, being worn out by the sting of pleasure.
But you, child, flee the nets of the enemy; for, just as you draw your descent, so by your most noble purpose you draw also the admirable chastity of your fathers and of your grandfather, being zealous to cleave continually to God; spitting upon the fair things of life, fasting every day, making yourself splendid with prayers and almsgiving, and preserving your purity in the midst of ten thousand things that have power to defile; and the marvel is that, even while you administer public affairs and, as need requires, make your responses to the public tax-collectors, you do not neglect the reading of the Ecclesiastical books; and so greatly do you embrace humility that, after your general education and your learning of the things of philosophy, you do not blush often to inquire of monks and of rustics, and gladly to receive from them provision for the soul's salvation. Completely, therefore, secure yourself by your own purpose against the devices of the deceitful one. For the demon shapes the passion lewdly and most shamefully not only in sleep, but often also, while the person is awake, it makes the mind behold men and women supposedly joining with one another in sin and being mingled together. And again, there are times when, while someone is praying in the Church, it inflames the generative parts by temptation, and wounds the heart with absurd reasonings. And there are times when, through voluptuousness, it makes the one being tempted suffer an emission as well; and often, when a greater quantity of seed has been deposited in the [...], in the very urinary passage of human beings, the urine carries out the seed itself along with it, so that some, terrified and astonished, are bent toward despair and hopelessness; and some, especially during the venerable feasts, the dreadful and shameless one tempts more violently. These few things, then, out of many, I have brought into the open for you concerning the craft of the unclean demons. But if you dismiss the tax-collectors and find leisure, you will come to me, and face to face I will tell you more completely the things concerning the wars of fornication. But farewell to me in the Lord, most beloved of sons.
To Domninus the Younger, a Leading Citizen [proteuon, a municipal magistrate of first rank].
Concerning the things you asked of me, I now indicate them to you. But do you engrave them on your memory, on account of the words of forgetfulness. And now do not demand that I say what is agreeable and untroubling about those who possess immobility by nature; for I find few, like certain lifeless stones, who have complete insensibility toward the passion, and to such a degree that they do not even undergo any emission in their sleep. But this is a gift of God, as it is for those who are born eunuchs from their mother's womb. As for the explanations of such a gift, God alone could know them, who has bestowed it upon certain persons who struggled not at all and toiled not at all. But concerning the matters that are in reasonings and in manifold ticklings, in the fiery seething, and in the desires of the body, now to you, my best child: secure your youth above all, binding it fast and bridling it with the fear of God and with the expectation of the eternal punishments. For if you are zealous to grow strong against sin, and to contend and to box against the ten thousand shameful reasonings that are insinuated, and against the inflamed motions of the flesh, I know well that you will much congratulate yourself on the most noble manliness and on the chaste mind, and you will approve yourself and praise yourself, and you will pass through human life in unspeakable joy and gladness of heart. But if, somewhat slackened by the exhortations of brief and vain pleasure, you allow your mind to be taken captive, and you are defeated by the sting, know well that you will be grieved, and you will be cast down by the blows of conscience, and will revile yourself ten thousand times and find fault with yourself.
The many-stained and many-formed demon of fornication tempts one man in one way, and troubles others in other ways. To some of the young it presents itself more quickly, to others more slowly; and some it taught corruption around their twelfth year, while others, who had reached their eighteenth year, it hooked with the passion, and yet others, who were over thirty years of age, against all expectation, it dragged down into the pit of shameful conduct. And as for how the accursed demon teaches the thing even to those inexperienced in the passion of fornication, be astonished: for while the boy is often lying upon his bed in the midday hours, the demon, standing over him in great stillness like a deceitful and cunning serpent, speaks to the soul through the imaginations, as though in the person of some male or female, and urges him persistently toward the abominable passion; and sometimes, even stroking the boy's head, it drives away sleep, so that thereafter, being awake and having nothing to do regarding the filthy reasonings, he may be occupied and may chatter idly among the shameful counsels, and so the more easily learn fornication. But if the young man is borne down into sleep, again through dreams it sets upon him, having painted the sin exactly, and having touched the little body and cast in a burning, it again contrives the appearance of some man or woman, irrationally and in a manner hard to discern, displaying nothing fornicatory, as it would seem, but mere friendship and an insatiable affection. Yet the aim of the demon in this drama looks not to a good but to an evil end. To others it openly and hotly urges the carrying out of the heart's desire into deed. One man it brings toward pleasure through the company of his fellow youths; another, through certain kinds of lawlessness of which it is not fitting to speak, it digs out from divine chastity.
Since, then, others are bound together by the most wicked demon of fornication and hunted toward destruction, with all your power fence yourself round with the enclosures of purity, that you may not suffer that which the prophet says in the person of those who are ensnared: that "I hastened not to look, because I have rather called upon faithlessness and wretchedness." For every person who does not hearken to the words of the Lord, toward the [...] of virtue and the gloom of the passion of fornication, is dragged toward the wretchedness of the abomination, being hurried along by the filthy demon that persuaded him; for the human being for the most part inclines toward the will of the flesh and of the demon. The word of purity in Scripture said, therefore, to those who contend: "There comes an hour that you should depart from me and leave me alone." For easily a person departs from the holy and blessed life, and entangles himself in the reproachful and shameful labor; and going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and falling among robbers, that is, the soul-destroying demons, he is stripped of the garments of austerity and of struggle, and receives the blows of uncleanness and of terrible incontinence, and is left half-dead before God. For to remember repentance at all, and a change for the better, hints at the half of eternal life. And he will have time also for a complete life. By life I mean that which is rooted through the zeal of many efforts and through fruits worthy of firm repentance. But may you yourself not need so great an affliction, and sackcloth, and ashes, and rendings, and bitter weeping and lamentation, which indeed those endure who reap and gather in, in their wretchedness, the brief season of the pleasure of repentance. And you will stand higher than the nets of the enemy, if indeed you are zealous never at all to come outside the walls of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is interpreted "mountain of peace"; which name, according to its obvious sense, signifies a well-pleasing and pure manner of life. For fleshly pleasure is not a mountain of peace, but a mountain of battle and of war, and of disturbance, and of disorder, and of uproar, and of squall, and of the successive waves of passion, and of sin, and of unproclaimed purpose. For pleasure can never rest or be calmed in those who have fallen under it and been defeated by it; but like some barbarian mistress it torments with the blows of lecheries, and exacts tribute relentlessly, and the tribute is forced from those enslaved to their faults, granting almost no respite to those who have fallen. For the divine oracle also says: "Your time is always most ready at hand. But my time is not at hand." Nor does freedom of speech readily appear; because human beings, more gladly defeated by corruption and loving the poison of pleasure at every season, hasten by night and by day to serve the evil gladly. But the kingdom of virtue and its lordship the many are perhaps unwilling at any time to consider or to ponder, being worn out by the sting of pleasure.
But you, child, flee the nets of the enemy; for, just as you draw your descent, so by your most noble purpose you draw also the admirable chastity of your fathers and of your grandfather, being zealous to cleave continually to God; spitting upon the fair things of life, fasting every day, making yourself splendid with prayers and almsgiving, and preserving your purity in the midst of ten thousand things that have power to defile; and the marvel is that, even while you administer public affairs and, as need requires, make your responses to the public tax-collectors, you do not neglect the reading of the Ecclesiastical books; and so greatly do you embrace humility that, after your general education and your learning of the things of philosophy, you do not blush often to inquire of monks and of rustics, and gladly to receive from them provision for the soul's salvation. Completely, therefore, secure yourself by your own purpose against the devices of the deceitful one. For the demon shapes the passion lewdly and most shamefully not only in sleep, but often also, while the person is awake, it makes the mind behold men and women supposedly joining with one another in sin and being mingled together. And again, there are times when, while someone is praying in the Church, it inflames the generative parts by temptation, and wounds the heart with absurd reasonings. And there are times when, through voluptuousness, it makes the one being tempted suffer an emission as well; and often, when a greater quantity of seed has been deposited in the [...], in the very urinary passage of human beings, the urine carries out the seed itself along with it, so that some, terrified and astonished, are bent toward despair and hopelessness; and some, especially during the venerable feasts, the dreadful and shameless one tempts more violently. These few things, then, out of many, I have brought into the open for you concerning the craft of the unclean demons. But if you dismiss the tax-collectors and find leisure, you will come to me, and face to face I will tell you more completely the things concerning the wars of fornication. But farewell to me in the Lord, most beloved of sons.
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.