Letter 864

To Aphthonius the Abbot. In a time of bodily sickness the demon contrives to get certain brothers to advise the one who is being nursed to make use, for the sake of being healed, not only of the things that can be procured, but also of the things that cannot be procured -- as, for instance, the fever of a bird, or the bone of a fresh fig especially, or the spleen of an ant. And over these things he plays his mockery, and he leads astray the frivolous and easily swayed brother, so that, having departed from setting his hope upon the Lord, he may be dissolved into dead preoccupations, and anxieties, and griefs, and dreamy imaginings. Yet the demon does not do this to all who are ill, nor at all times, but to those more inexperienced in the things that befall them, and only now and then.

Ἐν καιρῷ σωματικῆς ἀσθενείας παρασκευάζει ὁ δαίμων τινὰς ἀδελφοὺς συμβουλεύειν τῷ νοσηλευομένῳ χρήσασθαι εἰς τὸ ἰαθῆναι οὐ μόνον τοῖς εὑρετοῖς, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς ἀνευρέτοις, οἷον φέρε εἰπεῖν, τῷ πυρῷ τοῦ ὄρνιθος, ἢ τοῦ ὀστέου τοῦ προσφάτου μάλιστα σύκου, ἢ τῷ σπληνὶ τοῦ μύρμηκος· καὶ περὶ ταῦτα χλευάζει, καὶ πλανᾷ τὸν κοῦφον, καὶ εὐχερῆ ἀδελφὸν, ὅπως ἀποστὰς τοῦ ἐλπίζειν ἐπὶ Κύριον, εἰς νεκρὰς φροντίδας, καὶ μερίμνας, καὶ λύπας, καὶ ὀνειροπολίας διαχυθῇ. Οὐ πᾶσι δὲ τοῦτο ποιεῖ ὁ δαίμων τοῖς ἀῤῥωστοῦσιν, οὐδὲ πάντοτε, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἀπειροτέροις τῶν συμβαινόντων, καὶ ἔσθ’ ὅτε.